• The final paragraph of this Seattle Times story about layoffs at KOMO by Rachel Lerman really hammers home how absolutely screwed the Seattle media scene is these days:

NBC News shut down its Seattle-based Breaking News startup, and The Seattle Globalist, a nonprofit news site, is working to raise money from subscribers after the University of Washington announced it would no longer fund the site. Northwest Cable News is scheduled to go dark at the end of this week. The Seattle Times said late last year it is planning newsroom cuts.

• With regard to that last item, it's important to note that Seattle has some terrific independent media, and you should support it. Small, dedicated sites like Seattlish, Seattle Transit Blog, The South Seattle Emerald, and many more are out there, covering beats that corporate news simply won't deign to cover. You should support these independent news outlets as best you can this year; 2017 is going to be a bloodbath for the media, and you can help your favorite outlet survive.

• And since we're talking about supporting local independent media, thank you for reading our independent literary news site. If you'd like to support us, all I ask is that you check out our sponsor once a week; our sponsors are terrific because they allow us to pay our wonderful contributors, like our January Poet in Residence, Elisa Chavez. You don't have to buy every book that sponsors our site, but we'd much appreciate it if you'd give them a bit of your attention. And if you've published a book, or if you're throwing an event, or if you own a bookstore and you want to get the word out, we hope you'll consider buying a sponsorship with us. We believe in this model, and we're happy to report that it's working.

• In non-Seattle media news: at the New Yorker, Rozina Ali writes about how and why Islam has been stripped from Rumi's poetry.

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